It has been known that about 30% of the energy intake of an internal combustion engine is wasted and dissipated to the environment without being otherwise used. At best, such waste energy is partially utilized for heating purposes. Exhaust gas turbo chargers are among the known supplemental or auxiliary components which by means of a gas turbine make use of the exhaust gas flow to bring about a significant improvement in the efficiency of internal combustion engines.
Furthermore, it has been known to feed the coolant vapor of an internal combustion engine to a turbine; but regulating the coolant circulation and maintaining a stable operating condition have been found to be problematic, particularly during start-up and shut-down phases of the system. Moreover, the safety of the operating system is by no means assured (WO 03/048529 A1). It has also been known to conduct, parallel to the coolant circuit, evaporating cooling liquid into a turbine and to maintain coolant liquid circulation by means of two compressors. However, such a system is technically complex in terms of its manufacture, installation and maintenance (DE 199 16 676 C1).